Education reporter

Hateful words written on the back of a car left University of Georgia student Erica Gibson shaken Saturday night — but they were not a crime, she discovered when she reported the incident to UGA police.

When Gibson got to her car in the East Campus Village parking deck, she saw someone had used a finger to scrawl a racial epithet on the back window of her car: “I hate niggers.”

Gibson thought it was a friend at first, playing a joke that went too far.

Friends not only said they didn’t do it, however, but helped convinced her to call UGA police Sunday morning.

A UGA police officer took a report, which is standard procedure in such complaints, said UGA Police Chief Jimmy Williamson.

Police forward those reports to the UGA Equal Opportunity Office, partly to have a record in case a pattern emerges later. But what the racist writer did is not actually a crime, Williamson explained.

Hateful as the message was, there was no damage to property and no physical attack, he said.

Similar incidents are rare on the UGA campus, said Janyce Dawkins, interim head of UGA’s Equal Opportunity Office. Most are pranks, she said.

Prank or not, the message left a lasting mark on Gibson.

She doesn’t know if the message was made by someone she knows, or even if the person is a UGA student. Football fans park in the deck when UGA plays at home.

“I don’t feel comfortable going out to the parking deck by myself,” she said.

Gibson not only is bothered by the racial aspect of the message, but wonders if she is safe. She thinks UGA should install video cameras in parking decks.

“My concern now is that they know my face. Someone watched me go to my car,” Gibson said. “You wonder how far this could go.”

Gibson doesn’t want to let it go, she said.

“Students, especially females, need to be reminded the potential danger of our parking decks, as there are no cameras in them,” she said. “Second, the individual must know that actions such as this are unacceptable.”